Local Links
•Carson City guide
•Carson City Chamber of Commerce

Teachers live the life of Riley - but only in their dreams

I'm taking my morning break in our luxurious teachers' lounge.  My teachers' aides are hovering about, grading my papers, writing my lessonplans, rubbing my feet, and spoon-feeding me the brie and caviar donated by the PTA.  I'm taping the Jerry Springer show on my hi-fi VCR so I can watch it later in my classroom on my big-screen television while my students are in P.E.  class.  I'm using my personal 750 MHz laptop computer with its super-fast T1 Internet connection to check how my Microsoft stock is doing.  Shoot - I hope I have time to open all the gifts my students brought me today.  Ah, this is the life...

"Hey, pass another latté, will ya? Don't spill any on the DVD player...  somebody get the phone - it's probably my travel agent calling about next week's field trip to Bora Bora...  hey you - are you done copying that book for me yet? Hurry up - I'm going to miss the next company party!"

R-R-R-R-INNNNG!!!! 5:30 am, and it's time to get ready for school.  What a weird dream that was...  but it was somehow familiar...oh, yes, that letter to the editor in the Appeal on March 16.

Ms.  Davidson 's vision (hallucination?) of the teaching experience is as convoluted as the drugged caterpillar's monologue in Alice and Wonderland.  My students just learned about the digestive system, and most of them could probably identify Ms.  Davidson's drivel as a product of the large intestine (and they know the proper word for it, too).  Ms.  Davidson needs to shadow me for a week and discover the reality of a teacher's life.  Here are some places where Ms.  Davidson's fantasy and my reality diverge:

• I get none of the "breaks" that Ms.  Davidson alleges; in fact, my day is a whirlwind of activity that doesn't even stop for lunch (I monitor students in the cafeteria and outside).  Prep period is not a "break" - it's a work period without students in the room.

• Students are on my campus from 7:00 until 3:00 every day (eight hours).  I work with these students constantly during that time, except for a 45 minute period when I call parents, attend meetings, and perform various managerial and clerical functions (grading papers, running off things for students, maintaining instructional materials, setting up activities).  These things are important parts of my job.  Clearly, though, this is different from Ms.  Davidson's imagined six hours of student-teacher contact.  What school is she talking about? On what planet?

• There are aides in my class, but for very specific purposes like assisting second language students or students with special needs.  These aides do not plan lessons or grade papers for me; their presence enriches student learning, but it does not relieve me of any of my responsibilities or lessen the amount of time I have to spend on evenings or weekends grading papers or preparing lessons.  I have never had a parent volunteer to help in my classroom, but then I don't expect this, either.

• The only computers, TV's, or VCR's I have in my classroom are ones I bought with my own money or which were donated by government agencies who were surplusing them for better equipment.  The computers are ten years out of date and do not have connections to the Internet.  I am grateful to have them, however - most teachers at my school have none.  The only phone in my classroom connects me only with the office.

• This summer during my "time off," I will attend three separate one-week institutes that will not affect my salary.  I will pay the cost of attending these institutes myself, and I expect that the knowledge and skills I gain will improve my teaching next year.  I will also spend a significant amount of time evaluating and re-writing this year's lessons, and hunting up the resources to use in teaching them.

• I spend as little time in the teachers' "lounge" as possible, but I have noticed that it is neither luxurious nor filled with treats from the PTA.  (Our PTA does a lot of wonderful things for my school, but providing "lounge treats" isn't one of them.)

• Unless Ms.  Davidson considers a trip to the high school to participate in a videoconference travel to a "fun and exciting place," she is quite mistaken about the nature and frequency of field trips teachers attend.

Some other misrepresentations/misconceptions in Ms.  Davidson's letter:
 

• It is hard to recruit teachers for some positions.  Many teachers can pick and choose where they decide to start teaching, so they go where the pay is best.  Ms.  Davidson, do you really blame them for this? Is teaching supposed to be a voluntary vocation? We do not have a long list of people waiting for teaching jobs, and all teachers are not created equal - if you want the best, pay the best.  Do you want a warm body teaching your kids, Ms.  Davidson, or somebody who is excited, motivated, knowledgeable, and talented?
• There are NOT too many days for teacher professional development.  On the contrary, there are not nearly enough.  If you want to change teacher practice, then the learning experiences for teachers must be sustained and ongoing.  A couple of "one-shot" workshops a year have little or no impact on improving teaching.  That is not a philosophy.  It's a fact.
• Does Ms.  Davidson really have a problem with me having my "own room" (which I share with 30 other kids) "in a beautiful and clean building, out of the weather elements," with a "nurse on campus" and "a janitorial service on hand?" Geez, Ms.  Davidson, you make me feel guilty that I'm not teaching in the park, dispensing Ritalin and raking the ground at the end of the day.  Maybe if my students were freezing or getting bitten by mosquitoes they'd achieve better results on the state Terra Nova tests.

Lest anyone casually dismiss my letter as "whining," they should know that I am not complaining about my salary and benefits.  I love teaching.  My students are great, and their parents are mostly supportive.  In general (not when I read Ms.  Davidson's letter), I feel well-respected and am treated like a professional educator.  Any problems I have in my teaching I view as challenges to overcome.

You're right, Ms.  Davidson, it's time for teachers to quit whining.  More teachers need to become active participants in changing a system that doesn't provide the resources to give our students a chance to compete in a global economy, that protects the "rights" of disruptive children at the expense of our best and brightest, that produces persons like yourself who are functionally literate but clearly unable to critically evaluate a system.

Ms.  Davidson, I'll go to school tomorrow and educate the people who will take care of you and me someday.  What are YOU going to do to improve education besides write whining misrepresentations to the newspaper?